Also, The Hulk is not very useful in situations where any kind of subtlety is needed. Unless Tony needed someone to kill the **** out of a lot of bad guys for him or do some physics/biology (wait, what exactly is Bruce's degree?), there's not much Bruce could do.

I think we will find that CA:TWS will probably take place in the same timeline as IM3. Steve is really the only one suited for helping Tony.

Also from what I understand, the President in this film is upset that the US Military was unprepared for New York. He probably doesn't want SHIELD's involvement, who operate as more of an international autonomous organization, with Fury ignoring the international council of leaders who he is supposed to be under the command of. That would eliminate Fury, Hawkeye and BW. There was a rumor at one time that Val Kilmer was to play an unnamed SHIElD agent, taking over for Coulson that would be assigned to Tony, but that part of the script was rejected.

Banner only unleashed the Hulk, because he realized that it was the only way to stop what was going on. At the beginning of TIH, it has been several months/years since the Hulk was unleashed, and between TIH and Avengers, BW mentioned it has been more than a year since he's had an "incident". Banner will be reluctant to unleash the Hulk again.

With Thor it's pretty obvious. From the TDW trailer, we know the Bifrost will be repaired, but we don't know what the timing will be.

This is a question that can be levelled at any movie after a massive team up movie like The Avengers or if there is even a Justice League movie. People are always going to be wondering when the stakes are high for each individual character, why it is they don't get help from their teammates. Difficult to justify really.

It would be nice like in the comics where we would see a Marvel hero do a one panel cameo that it happen the same in the movies, you know just so the other heroes are aware of each others predicament.

Let's say for example by the trailers we know Stark's beach house gets blown up maybe we can see a scene of the other Avengers watching the disaster on TV and not being able to help due to other urgencies.

__________________A few of the Marvel Superheroes are somewhat niche characters that aren't extremely versatile, thus they don't have a lot of longevity potential. For example, Namor is a water guy, Silver Surfer is a space guy, Dr. Strange is a magic guy, and so on.

This is a question that can be levelled at any movie after a massive team up movie like The Avengers or if there is even a Justice League movie. People are always going to be wondering when the stakes are high for each individual character, why it is they don't get help from their teammates. Difficult to justify really.

Not really.

Sometimes a police officer can handle a situation by themselves. Sometimes they need to call in for backup. Sometimes the police department needs to call in a SWAT team or even the FBI.

There's different levels of threats, and each can be handled by varying degrees of response.

Sometimes a police officer can handle a situation by themselves. Sometimes they need to call in for backup. Sometimes the police department needs to call in a SWAT team or even the FBI.

There's different levels of threats, and each can be handled by varying degrees of response.

Good example.

People also need to realize that the actors are contracted for a certain number of movies, and Marvel cannot allow them to appear on other people's movies and thus "used up" the movies they're contracted with. And an Avengers movie is an extremely expensive one, an event film that is more suited to show up every few years or so. If the threat isn't as big as an alien invasion like in TA, there's no reason for every Avenger to show up, either.

__________________"I know I'm asking a lot, but the price of freedom is high, it always has been, and it's a price I'm willing to pay. And if I'm the only one, then so be it. But I'm willing to bet I'm not." - Captain America

I love that Iron man 3 talked about the trauma Tony went through in the Avengers. It's a bit of a shame Shield wasn't mentioned though. I kept wondering, where are they in all of this? Oh well.

As for the other Avengers I suppose they're all tied up with their own dramas which we'll learn about more with future movies.

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

IIRC Jarvis mentions using SHIELD's database, among others, to compile a file on Mandarin's attacks

Also, for Avengers, it's not like they have a central location (yet). They're pretty scattered, so by the time they'd even hear about something going on with one of the others it'd already be handled & over.

__________________

In flight there is serenity - the motion out, the space between,
The promise of each new life - and possibility.

Swallow flies south before the fall, before the winter can call...
Can call in each borrower - for what was given

Well, at least we had a small cameo from Banner, which brings things to somewhat of a full circle since Banner and Stark are the only characters to have ever had a cameo in each of their solo films; if anything, Banner was more likely the one avenger that had the time to check up on Tony after the events of Iron Man 3 as opposed to CA, BW/HE, and Thor.

To me the film seemed to take place over a few days for which most of it Tony was out of reach (he only just reached Pepper). The President thing was kept under wraps and when they tried to explain it to someone (the VP) turns out he was in on it so I'm assuming that's where S.H.I.E.L.D. would've come into it.

- Why does Tony not contact them? I think the movie did a very good job of explaining it, namely he is so out of sorts after the events of New York he totally does not want to even think about that bunch.

- Why do the Avengers not come for him individually? Well, given that they weren´t really tight friends to begin with and sort of drifted apart after the mission was accomplished, why would they?

- Why does SHIELD not intervene? Well, maybe it does investigate Mandarin. Tony would not know. After he got himself involved, for all SHIELD could have gone after the baddies, Tony was always ahead of them in his investigation.

My take? Fury appeared 15 min after the main fight ended, tried to debrief Tony and got the finger, and was left to interrogate

It's very simple....half the world has not seen Iron Man 3...if you do not put spoilers about important things in the movie in spoiler tags...you will be infracted and put on probation. Do not ruin the movie for others.

Sometimes a police officer can handle a situation by themselves. Sometimes they need to call in for backup. Sometimes the police department needs to call in a SWAT team or even the FBI.

There's different levels of threats, and each can be handled by varying degrees of response.

Yes but in this case and the context of the film, how exactly is that a good example?

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

The whole country was threatened with acts of terrorism and The President life was at stake. Add to that Tony having his whole house and life almost blown to smithereens.

That doesn't exactly sound like a job for the police department or FBI. Tony and The United States would have needed some serious help. It's not really a criticism levelled at the film, it's just a speculative question that can't be easily answered.

I think a smaller scale story would have suited this film a lot better. Less about plans of mass destruction and more about breaking Tony Stark physically and mentally. The villain making things extremely personal. Then again, it is the third in a trilogy at this point, so you have to up the stakes somehow, especially after a disappointing second movie. It's just hard to justify The Avengers not teaming up when all that is at stake. I guess it's just something that has to be overlooked to a certain degree. The ideal way would have been to have trilogies of all the characters completed first and then have them all team up.

I'm just not a big fan of the way Marvel churn out film after film in quick succession. The only decent ones in my opinion have been Iron Man 1 and Thor. The Avengers was a milestone moment but that clouds opinion on what I think is an overrated movie. I feel things are being rushed somewhat and the best possible movies are not being made here.

I can pretty much sum up, in a spoiler-y fashion fo course, why there was no Avengers response to Tony being in trouble so much, etc.

Spoiler!!! Click to Read!:

Tony was in many ways a detective in IM3. From crime scene manipulation to lots of other stuff, he basically single-handedly solved the mystery of the explosions without bombs, the connection between Killian and "Mandarin", and the Mandarin's whereabouts (Miami) with the help of Jarvis and Harley of course. So while the rest of the country/world/and maybe even Nick Fury and the other Avengers were assuming this was all being done by the Mandarin from far away in some middle eastern location, only really Tony and Rhodes knew what was going on and both of them were out of commission/contact either in remote locations or being held captive for stretched of time. So yeah even though the BIG events like the explosions and such would logically and possibly call for/cause a response from the other superheroes they couldn't truly help Tony anyway because he was keeping the truth behind it all a secret. To top that all off at this point in Tony's life he's WAY past done wit the Avengers. He can't stand to think about the NY incident and probably thinks he can handle the Mandarin on his own, which of course he ultimately did (with the help of others along the way of course). Hope this makes sense.